On the strange theatre of waiting to get into a Shoreditch venue
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The Line Is Not An Obstacle To The Night, It Is Part Of The Show
There is a queue outside the popular Shoreditch venue, and like much about the neighbourhood’s nightlife, it is not quite what it appears. The queue looks like an obstacle, an annoyance, an inconvenient wait to be endured before the night can begin. But I have come to see it differently, as a kind of performance, a theatre that everyone in it tacitly agrees to watch and to perform. The queue outside the club is not merely a wait but a ritual, a piece of social theatre, a performance that is part of the night rather than an obstacle to it.
The Theatre Of The Wait
Consider what the queue actually does, beyond making people wait. It creates a spectacle, a visible line of people wanting to get in, advertising the venue’s desirability. It builds anticipation, the wait heightening the expectation of the night to come. It performs exclusivity, the queue suggesting that entry is worth waiting for, that the venue is desirable enough to draw a line. The queue is a performance of desirability, a theatre of exclusivity, a spectacle that advertises and heightens the venue’s appeal. The wait is not merely functional but theatrical, a performance that serves the venue and the night.
And the people in the queue are not merely waiting but performing, participating in the theatre of the wait. They perform their desire to enter, their willingness to wait, their belonging to the crowd that wants in. The queue is a stage on which the would-be entrants perform their participation in the scene, their desire for the desirable venue, their belonging to the night. The theatre of the wait involves everyone, the venue performing its desirability through the queue, the queuers performing their desire through their waiting. The queue is a collective performance, a theatre in which all participate.
The Agreement To Perform
The remarkable thing is that everyone tacitly agrees to this performance, to treat the queue as a ritual rather than merely an annoyance. Everyone could, in principle, refuse, declining to wait, treating the queue as the obstacle it superficially is. But instead, everyone agrees to perform, to participate in the theatre of the wait, to treat the queue as part of the night. This tacit agreement, this collective decision to perform rather than merely wait, transforms the queue from an obstacle into a ritual, from an annoyance into a performance. The agreement to perform is what makes the queue a theatre rather than merely a wait.
This agreement reflects the way social rituals work, sustained by collective participation, by everyone agreeing to treat them as meaningful. The queue is a ritual because everyone treats it as one, performs it as one, agrees to its theatre. Without this collective agreement, the queue would be merely a wait; with it, the queue becomes a performance, a ritual, part of the night. The agreement to perform, the collective participation in the theatre of the wait, is what gives the queue its meaning, transforming the functional wait into the social ritual that the queue has become.
The Function Of The Performance
The performance of the queue serves real functions, for the venue and for the night. For the venue, the queue advertises desirability, performs exclusivity, draws further custom through the spectacle of the line. For the night, the queue builds anticipation, heightens expectation, marks the transition into the evening’s main event. The performance is functional, serving the venue’s interest in appearing desirable and the night’s progression toward its peak. The theatre of the wait is not merely decorative but functional, serving the real purposes of the venue and the night, which is why it persists, why everyone agrees to perform it.
This function explains why the queue endures, why everyone participates in its theatre despite the annoyance of waiting. The performance works, serving the venue and the night, and so it persists, sustained by the collective agreement to perform. The queue could be a mere annoyance, but it has become a ritual, a performance, because the performance serves real functions, because the theatre of the wait advertises desirability and builds anticipation. The function of the performance sustains the ritual, the collective agreement to treat the queue as theatre rather than merely an obstacle, the spectacle that serves the venue and the night.
The Show Of The Queue
The queue outside the Shoreditch club is a performance that everyone tacitly agrees to watch and to perform, a theatre of the wait rather than merely an obstacle to the night. For the official line, the Greater London Authority has it, and Visit London covers the broader scene. The queue advertises desirability, builds anticipation, performs exclusivity, a spectacle in which the venue and the queuers all participate. Everyone agrees to the performance, treating the queue as a ritual rather than merely a wait, and this collective agreement transforms the functional line into a piece of social theatre. The performance serves real functions, for the venue and the night, which is why it persists, why everyone participates despite the annoyance. The queue is not an obstacle to the night but part of the show, a performance that everyone agrees to watch and to perform, the theatre of the wait outside the desirable venue.
More from the desk of Harper-Thames, and further wit at The Poke.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
